I don’t think so.
Honestly thought I had done a flawless job
Look again mate. It’s much smaller, it’s not even from a photoshooting session, it’s from a match!! Are you blind???
He even has another jersey!!! Okk, I’ll just…
Gotta agree. I was completely duped. I’m actually a bit upset with @Phoebica for misleading us in this manner.
Yeah clear Photoshop. You can see in his hair she left in the strawberry icecream from the picture underneath
I read what you write but I can’t see it.
He’ll be saying your profile picture is photoshopped next smh
It’s not, it’s just a very old pic, I don’t look like that now. I also have another computer than that old thing there.
That’s €30 million over the three year period (so €10 million per year) and that’s designed to ward off unsustainable debt. Arsenal will have a loss this year for the first time since 2002, but the club isn’t in any danger as far as debt is concerned.
Kroenke could refinance the debt, which would give Arsenal an extra £20 million per season to work with (assuming the loan was at no interest and needn’t be paid off until he sells the club). But keep in mind that the club would then owe him that money.
As for the cash reserves, I’m not sure blowing it all in one transfer window would necessarily be a good business strategy (also, they have to keep a certain amount to secure servicing the debt).
Arsenal now has a £40 million per season boost in commercial revenue over the next five years because of the new Adidas and Emirates deals. If they can find other sources of commercial revenue, that will give the club a boost. But what’s really hurting right now is being out of the Champions League. If they can edge back into that competition next season (and hopefully stay there), they should be in sound financial shape as far as revenue goes.
What’s really put Arsenal in a hole has been the ineptitude of Gazidis (who pocketed £22 million for his efforts). Arsenal has had a significantly higher net spend that either Liverpool or Chelsea over the past four seasons, but their gross spend has been limited by poor decisions such as allowing players to get into a position of running down their contracts (some leaving for free) and wages that make it difficult to sell players they want to move on. Concurrently, they’ve made horrible decisions in player acquisition with more misses than hits.
Liverpool, particularly, has been a stark contrast. They’ve managed to sell players for significant profits and parlay that into the squad they have now. The sale of Coutinho almost paid for Van Dijk and Alisson combined. And they’ve found bargains in the market, including Salah, Mane, Wijnaldum and Robertson. Spurs have managed to accomplish what they have while enjoying a negative net spend of -£29 million over the past four years (compared to £232 million for Arsenal).
Arsenal needs to be smarter, like Liverpool. But it will take some time to dig out of this mess. If Sanllehi can manage to move on all the players that they hope to move this summer, you can call him Houdini. And even if they can find someone to take Ozil, they’ll still be paying half or more of his wages.
So it’s going to take time. Vinai Venkatesham said last month that “every penny” that the club generates will be available to invest in transfers (which is why the articles about them begging Kroenke for to “release” more funds are hogwash). The more they can generate from sales, the more they’ll be able to do in remaking the squad this summer. But they just can’t do it all right away. They just need to do enough to get back into the Champions League and go from there.
yeah ok I see it now.
There is no interest in actual factual debate… thanks for trying, but I have done the routine before and it is pointless…
hey now @ljungbergkamp, we’ve had a few?
Just concussed from beating my head against that wall…
The loss allowed over the three years is 5 plus 30 euros (so roughly 30 in Sterling 10 m pa) and excludes any spend on infrastructure and the academy set ups.
The accounts don’t say how much we spend on these two categories - maybe 30m pounds a year taking allowable losses to 40m pa.
We made 70m in 2018 accounts even after blowing 17m on Wengers departure to offset against any losses in 2019 and 20 which is 35m per annum losses allowed in the next 2 years. When added to the 40m pa above we get to 75m per annum for 2019 and 2020. I haven’t seen the 2019 accounts but happy to analyse them if you have a prefiling copy to hand. I’m sceptical however that FFP is a true reason for the current tiny (in relation to the surgery needed on the squad) transfer budget.
Added to the above and the extra 40m a year you mention of new income I really cannot make sense of a transfer budget of 40-50 m. In my mind a hundred million should be very possible based on the accounts data we know about already and the news on the new commercial revenues you’ve posted.
I agree given Ozil has two years left on his deal that he’d be a giveaway at best.
The net player spend (excluding wages) in the 7 years in the accounts is actually about 120m not what you (and Ljunbergkamp quote). The accounts basis is the one used for FFP. I think that’s very low for a club of Arsenal’s side. The pretax and finance charge profit over that period is heading up well over 200m in that period and Stans capital gain of at least 600m based on his own valuation of the club last year. I don’t think that’s a fair deal on the fans who pay for it all either directly or indirectly through their Sky subs etc. In any event the past 7 years isn’t relevant for FFP.
I agree Gazidis was a horror. Stan sat on the board all that time and had full control for most of it and his son Josh also is in his sixth year. I make that Stans fault for keeping Gazidis going so long and of course in a privately owned business Gazidis runs on Stans leash. It’s like saying the dog owners not responsible when their dog bites all the kids in the park and the dog owner just sits there watching for 10 years before the dog leaves of its own volition for a better paid job in Italy.
Stan can refinance against equity no one says he has to loan (and yes I know he won’t).
The FFP penalties for mega transgression to date have been a joke anyway although I’m not advocating we breach FFP on an ongoing basis or even if that Stan has to make a long term loss from his involvement in the club.
I just don’t think this is a fair balance between fan and owner. That’s why I’m boycotting the club this year until I see a change of direction (and yes it may not happen in my lifetime). I’m in a tiny minority right now going this far. I hope that’ll change soon but you can accuse me of idealism and yes I’ll plead guilty to that charge.
Your first mistake is assuming that Arsenal’s transfer budget is £40-45 million just because the papers keep saying it. Nobody outside the club really knows what their transfer budget is, but they have more ability to spend than that. However, whatever their budget is, it’s significantly smaller than it would have been had they returned to the Champions League.
This tweet by Swiss Ramble shows just how much Arsenal is being hurt by being outside the Champions League (I would embed it, but don’t know how, so I’ll just link it). AFC earned £32 million from making the Europa League final. Spurs got £90 million for making the Champions League final.
As for a few other issues:
Here’s Swiss Ramble’s tweet on Arsenal’s net spend in comparison to the other top 6 clubs:
Arsenal Net Spend vs. Other Clubs
So I don’t know where you get £120 million over seven years, but that’s wrong. If you want to go back further than four years, Arsenal’s net spend in 2014-15 (five years back) was about £82 million, the season before that it was about £34 million and in 2012-13 they made about an £8 million profit. So we’re looking at about £340 million over seven years.
Owners can spend as much as they want on stadium improvements, academies and women’s football. But that’s separate from spending on players. They can’t move money from those areas to spend on players then have the owner cover it. You can only spend on players what you generate in revenue and player sales. So it really doesn’t matter what Arsenal spends on infrastructure or the academy (except, of course, in the long term).
The profit in 2017-18 was based on high player sales. As Swiss Ramble noted in another tweet:
However, this profit was driven by £120m from player sales, so AFC actually made a hefty £42m operating loss in 2017/18 – a £94m decline from the previous season’s £52m operating profit. This was due to the “double whammy” of no Champions League and a surging wage bill.
He goes on in the following tweet to note that Arsenal will probably record an operating loss this year for the first time since 2002. As for Arsenal in relation to Financial Fair Play, he says this:
AFC have no FFP issues at the moment (either Premier League or UEFA), mainly thanks to the high profits on player sales in 2017/18, but this will become more of a concern going forward, despite the large exclusions for academy, infrastructure, women’s football and community.
So Arsenal can’t just debt spend. Also, if the club were in financial difficulty that required them to debt spend, they would have to clear it with the Club Financial Control Board in advance and set up an agreement. From UEFA:
A certain level of debt is part of a normal financing approach for any business. However the build-up of net debt is restricted by the break-even rules, which require owners or investors to recapitalise and cover any losses. In addition, in the future any investors looking to conclude a voluntary agreement with the CFCB will be expected to commit funds in advance, ex ante rather than ex post. Finally certain debts with added importance, such as debts to players or key staff, social/tax authorities and other clubs are monitored on a regular basis by the CFCB.
Certainly Kroenke could have fired Gazidis (who was hired by the previous owners). But the club was profitable and was in the Champions League during all those years, so what makes you think it should have been apparent to him that Gazidis was creating a mess? On one hand, fans complain that Kroenke doesn’t know anything about football, then they expect that he should have been able to judge the quality of acquisitions and sales. There are many reasons to prefer another owner, but I think this narrative is a bit of a stretch.
It is, of course, your prerogative to “boycott” the club. But you’re only hurting yourself. And if you’re boycotting the club, then why are you here talking about it? If I were boycotting the club, I wouldn’t spend so much time worrying about it. I’d find other things to do.
We should have a limit on the lenght of the posts on OA.
Yeah! Reading fucking sucks!
Reading is for gays!! Boooooo!